this is for you

[Karsten Wade]

Maybe you introduced yourself, or are still lurking.

Perhaps you have a document in progress, or an idea in process.

The Documentation Project needs you to help keep the momentum going.

* What is stopping you from submitting your document?  
* From using CVS?
* Do you need more directions?  
* Do you want fewer restrictions?

The steering committee for this project is here to help you be
successful working on Fedora documentation.

What can we do for you?

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
                       Red Hat SELinux Guide
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Karsten Wade]

New $SUBJECT reflects the fact that my semi-punny Subject from before
was too spammy.

Let's talk about working on this project. :)

On Mon, 2005-08-15 at 19:41 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
>  Maybe you introduced yourself, or are still lurking.
>  
>  Perhaps you have a document in progress, or an idea in process.
>  
>  The Documentation Project needs you to help keep the momentum going.
>  
>  * What is stopping you from submitting your document?  
>  * From using CVS?
>  * Do you need more directions?  
>  * Do you want fewer restrictions?
>  
>  The steering committee for this project is here to help you be
>  successful working on Fedora documentation.
>  
>  What can we do for you?
>  
>  - Karsten
>  -- 
>  fedora-docs-list mailing list
>  fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com
>  To unsubscribe: 
>  http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-docs-list 
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
                       Red Hat SELinux Guide
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Peter Boy]

Am Dienstag, den 16.08.2005, 14:09 -0700 schrieb Karsten Wade:
>  New $SUBJECT reflects the fact that my semi-punny Subject from
> before
>  was too spammy. 
in the context of this list it's perhaps provoking (in it's best sense),
but I think this type of mail is needed ;-)


>  On Mon, 2005-08-15 at 19:41 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
>  > Maybe you introduced yourself, or are still lurking.
>  > 
>  > Perhaps you have a document in progress, or an idea in process.
>  > 
>  > The Documentation Project needs you to help keep the momentum going. 
I'm one of those guys who are lurking around and I have several
(smaller) pieces of documentation text in my desks drawer.
>  > 
>  > * What is stopping you from submitting your document? 
Well, I for myself are suffering from some lack of orientation. I'm not
able to see in detail how several of my ideas and my texts may fit into
the scene.

- I'm missing a list, something like a "Table Of Content", about the
  topics, which should make up "Fedora Core Documentation" when it is
  ready. If such a list were available I could check weather one of my
  texts may fit

- I'm missing a list, who is currently working on *what*. There is the
  bugzilla entry (102668), but it seams to be out of date.
  (On the web there is a list of who is contributing, but not what)

As an example:

I just wrote a text (about 8 pages) to assist some of my staff members
to set up a samba server on FC 4. I consired to contribute it to the
fedora doku project. I found in Bugzilla 102668 that Aaron M. Epps is
working on that topic, but I couldn't find information about the details
of his work nor about the progress. I found nothing about it in CVS yet.
So I don't know how to proceed, and the text is going to vanish in the
desk drawer. 

>  > * Do you need more directions?  
>  > * Do you want fewer restrictions? 
Maybe both of it. Perhaps you should establish some sort of "early stage
approval process". Something like:

-  address to whom send the titel and a draft toc for a documentation
   text
-  recieve a decision to accept it for the documentation (if it meets
   the quality criteria when it is finished) or not (because the
   topic is out of range, not needed or whatever)
-  assigning a sponsor to assist in all further steps
-  establish some sort of feedback procedure. Perhaps the list 
   about maintained and orphaned packages on fedora extra may
   serve as a template
-  I read some contributors set up there one web page to present
   their work in an early stage in order to receive feedback.
   You may find the addresses in the mail archive but you have 
   to spend some efforts to find it.  A link list of such early
   stage contributions would be helpful.




>  > The steering committee for this project is here to help you be
>  > successful working on Fedora documentation. 
Well, just some ideas from my perspective. I would appreciate if I could
contribute some of my texts in a way which is managable for me instead
of letting them vanish in the desk drawer :-)



Peter

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Peter Boy]

Am Samstag, den 20.08.2005, 12:45 +0200 schrieb Peter Boy:
>  - I'm missing a list, who is currently working on *what*. There
> is the
>    bugzilla entry (102668), but it seams to be out of date.
>    (On the web there is a list of who is contributing, but not what) 
Sorry, just found it myself on
( http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/EditorAssignments )

Perhaps this page should get a more prominent place?


>  -  establish some sort of feedback procedure. Perhaps the list 
>     about maintained and orphaned packages on fedora extra may
>     serve as a template 
no need to invent the whell again :-) Maybe there is a way to add
information about the state of progress and a last modification date?


Peter

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> no need to invent the whell again :-) Maybe there is a way to add
> information about the state of progress and a last modification date?
>   
>  
I already suggested putting in a autobuild system to grab everything 
from cvs and put in say fedora.redhat.com/docs/drafts with a warning on 
top that its a work in progress. Also a weekly or bi weekly peer review 
on the list as suggested by Stuart Ellis is a good thing to have

regards
Rahul

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Stuart Ellis]

On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 12:45 +0200, Peter Boy wrote:

>  - I'm missing a list, something like a "Table Of
> Content", about the
>    topics, which should make up "Fedora Core Documentation" when it is
>    ready. If such a list were available I could check weather one of my
>    texts may fit 
One of the main ideas of the Fedora Project is that it's community
driven, i.e. it provides a framework to enable people to do the things
that they themselves consider important. The Docs Project provides
various kinds of support and infrastructure for publishing and
maintaining documentation, but they are really processes and don't
impose restrictions on content. 

The requirements on content are something like this: the documents have
to be relevant to Fedora Core or Extras, and they have to be of
sufficient standard before publishing to the Website. The general
consensus is also that it is best to keep documents focused, and avoid
reinventing existing resources.

It's worth noting that not all of the process stuff has to be done at
once. If somebody feels more comfortable drafting in plain-text to get
started then we can help people with DocBook and CVS as they need it.

Similarly, the drafts aren't expected to be perfect. It's normal for
each round of editing and review to result in lots of action items, and
I hope that nobody is put off by the long e-mails that result from each
peer review. Praise just takes fewer words than discussing even trivial
fixes.

Hope that's a helpful summary.

>  - I'm missing a list, who is currently working on *what*. There
> is the
>    bugzilla entry (102668), but it seams to be out of date.
>    (On the web there is a list of who is contributing, but not what) 
The EditorAssignments page has been mentioned, which was written as a
stock list of everything that had come into contact with the project.
I'll rearrange it to reflect what's currently happening in CVS.

>  As an example:
>  
>  I just wrote a text (about 8 pages) to assist some of my staff members
>  to set up a samba server on FC 4. I consired to contribute it to the
>  fedora doku project. I found in Bugzilla 102668 that Aaron M. Epps is
>  working on that topic, but I couldn't find information about the details
>  of his work nor about the progress. I found nothing about it in CVS yet.
>  So I don't know how to proceed, and the text is going to vanish in the
>  desk drawer. 
>  
>  > > * Do you need more directions?  
>  > > * Do you want fewer restrictions?
>  
>  Maybe both of it. Perhaps you should establish some sort of "early stage
>  approval process". Something like:
>  
>  -  address to whom send the titel and a draft toc for a documentation
>     text 
<snip>

We have a "New Writers" page which we push as much as we can:

http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/NewWriters

If there a way that we can make this easier to find, or clearer, then
please let me know.


-- 

Stuart Ellis

stuart(a)elsn.org

Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/

GPG key ID: 7098ABEA
GPG key fingerprint: 68B0 E291 FB19 C845 E60E  9569 292E E365 7098 ABEA

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Peter Boy]

Am Samstag, den 20.08.2005, 14:34 +0100 schrieb Stuart Ellis:
>  On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 12:45 +0200, Peter Boy wrote:
>  
>  > - I'm missing a list, something like a "Table Of Content", about the
>  >   topics, which should make up "Fedora Core Documentation" when it is
>  >   ready. If such a list were available I could check weather one of my
>  >   texts may fit
>  
>  One of the main ideas of the Fedora Project is that it's community
>  driven, i.e. it provides a framework to enable people to do the things
>  that they themselves consider important. The Docs Project provides
>  various kinds of support and infrastructure for publishing and
>  maintaining documentation, but they are really processes and don't
>  impose restrictions on content. 
Fully agreed. But  :-)

In order to achieve a comprehensive and well structured "Fedora
Documentation" I suppose some over all planning is helpful. And despite
being community driven somebody has to make the initial step. I think
the FDSCo is the only one who can this do.

Such a framework  being available may inspire one of the other lurkers
here to contribute a chapter.

(By the way would be interesting why a lot of people are just lurking.
May be they have no time left, may be they get no idea what to
contribute under the restriction of their time table).

 
>  [ .... ] 
>  Hope that's a helpful summary. 
It is, yes. Thanks.

>  We have a "New Writers" page which we push as much as we
> can:
>  
>  http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/NewWriters
>  
>  If there a way that we can make this easier to find, or clearer, then
>  please let me know. 
OK, this is highly speculative and to some extend a matter of personal
taste. But perhaps there is too much information about too many
different topics on the initial page
( http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ ). May be you should
consider to restructure it a little bit. In the upper part you should
place text and link to the available end user documentation (currently
it mainly is internal project documentation, not what I would expect
intuitively as "Fedora Documentation"). It should be followed by a short
presentation and description of the goals of the FDP, and link to the
page, where where all the ongoing work is listet (the current
EditorAssignments). May be a more descriptive label is "ongoing work".
There shouldn't be other links around it so it's easy to perceive.

Next may follow a paragraph about the need for contributers and here a
link zu the new contributors page. Again, just a single link in the
paragraph.

At the ende there should be all the information about the project
details and all the other links, especially to the details page.




Peter

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Rahul Sundaram]

Hi

> In order to achieve a comprehensive and well structured "Fedora
> Documentation" I suppose some over all planning is helpful. And despite
> being community driven somebody has to make the initial step. I think
> the FDSCo is the only one who can this do.
>  
FDSco people are all signed in here and would appreciate any ideas that 
helps them improve the process. Pariticipating in these discussions over 
IRC on meeting days can help.

> OK, this is highly speculative and to some extend a matter of personal
> taste. But perhaps there is too much information about too many
> different topics on the initial page
> ( http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ ). May be you should
> consider to restructure it a little bit.
>  
Do you wiki access. If not register and let me your user name off list 
and I will add you to the edit group.  An open invitation to everyone 
else here too. You can do such  restructuring yourself after consulting 
with other docs project participants over #fedora-docs if that is 
appealing to you

regards
Rahul

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Peter Boy]

Am Sonntag, den 21.08.2005, 00:45 +0530 schrieb Rahul Sundaram:
>  FDSco people are all signed in here and would appreciate any ideas
> that 
>  helps them improve the process. Pariticipating in these discussions over 
>  IRC on meeting days can help. 
I never used IRC before. I'll install the software and try to follow the
discussion.

>  Do you wiki access. If not register and let me your user name off
> list 
>  and I will add you to the edit group.  
Not having contributed one real piece of documentation yet I didn't want
to be so invasive. I will register and come back.


Peter

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Stuart Ellis]

On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 21:10 +0200, Peter Boy wrote:
>  Am Samstag, den 20.08.2005, 14:34 +0100 schrieb Stuart Ellis:
>  > On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 12:45 +0200, Peter Boy wrote:
>  > 
>  > > - I'm missing a list, something like a "Table Of Content", about
> the
>  > >   topics, which should make up "Fedora Core Documentation" when it
> is
>  > >   ready. If such a list were available I could check weather one of my
>  > >   texts may fit
>  > 
>  > One of the main ideas of the Fedora Project is that it's community
>  > driven, i.e. it provides a framework to enable people to do the things
>  > that they themselves consider important. The Docs Project provides
>  > various kinds of support and infrastructure for publishing and
>  > maintaining documentation, but they are really processes and don't
>  > impose restrictions on content.
>  
>  Fully agreed. But  :-)
>  
>  In order to achieve a comprehensive and well structured "Fedora
>  Documentation" I suppose some over all planning is helpful. And despite
>  being community driven somebody has to make the initial step. I think
>  the FDSCo is the only one who can this do.
>  
>  Such a framework  being available may inspire one of the other lurkers
>  here to contribute a chapter.
>  
>  (By the way would be interesting why a lot of people are just lurking.
>  May be they have no time left, may be they get no idea what to
>  contribute under the restriction of their time table). 
I guess that you are envisaging a single large document. We've tended to
aim for smaller and focused documents, as they get rapidly get harder
for a volunteer project to produce and maintain to a consistent standard
as they increase in scale.

Having said that, one of the ideas currently on the
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas is for a Fedora
Desktop Guide, which breaks up into chapters. This could probably be
done with 2-4 people.

>  > We have a "New Writers" page which we push as much as
> we can:
>  > 
>  > http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/NewWriters
>  > 
>  > If there a way that we can make this easier to find, or clearer, then
>  > please let me know.
>  
>  OK, this is highly speculative and to some extend a matter of personal
>  taste. But perhaps there is too much information about too many
>  different topics on the initial page
>  ( http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ ). 
Thanks - this was very helpful. The main page and the New Writers page
have now been restructured.

-- 

Stuart Ellis

stuart(a)elsn.org

Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/

GPG key ID: 7098ABEA
GPG key fingerprint: 68B0 E291 FB19 C845 E60E  9569 292E E365 7098 ABEA

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Peter Boy]

Am Sonntag, den 21.08.2005, 01:29 +0100 schrieb Stuart Ellis:
>  On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 21:10 +0200, Peter Boy wrote:
>  > In order to achieve a comprehensive and well structured "Fedora
>  > Documentation" I suppose some over all planning is helpful. And despite
>  > being community driven somebody has to make the initial step. I think
>  > the FDSCo is the only one who can this do.
>  > [...]
>  I guess that you are envisaging a single large document.  
Not necessarily. If you plan a series articles which aim at a common
topic, you need an overall plan even more. But I suppose, the thread
"doc ideas, dream big" opened by Karsten, may discuss this. So I will
add some remarks over there.

>  > [...]
>  > OK, this is highly speculative and to some extend a matter of personal
>  > taste. But perhaps there is too much information about too many
>  > different topics on the initial page
>  > ( http://www.fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ ).
>  
>  Thanks - this was very helpful. The main page and the New Writers page
>  have now been restructured. 
I've seen that. Looks much clearer to my eyes, now.


Peter

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Paul W. Frields]

On Sat, 2005-08-20 at 12:45 +0200, Peter Boy wrote:
>  > On Mon, 2005-08-15 at 19:41 -0700, Karsten Wade wrote:
>  > > Maybe you introduced yourself, or are still lurking.
>  > > 
>  > > Perhaps you have a document in progress, or an idea in process.
>  > > 
>  > > The Documentation Project needs you to help keep the momentum going.
>  
>  I'm one of those guys who are lurking around and I have several
>  (smaller) pieces of documentation text in my desks drawer. 
Woo-hoo!  Fresh meat!

>  > > * What is stopping you from submitting your document?
>  
>  Well, I for myself are suffering from some lack of orientation. I'm not
>  able to see in detail how several of my ideas and my texts may fit into
>  the scene. 
Then posting to the list is definitely the right thing to do.  When you
come to the table with raw material and the willingness to help shape it
into a new doc, you are providing the most valuable contribution to the
Docs Project!

>  - I'm missing a list, something like a "Table Of
> Content", about the
>    topics, which should make up "Fedora Core Documentation" when it is
>    ready. If such a list were available I could check weather one of my
>    texts may fit 
I know you've found the Editor Assignments page on the Wiki, which is a
list of everything we know about at this point, although quite a number
of documents on that page are stale due to inactivity.  In some cases
docs are promised but not delivered, and in others they are delivered
but the author doesn't work on them, and in still others editors have
not promptly reviewed, fixed, or discussed the work with the authors.
More participation is a good fix for that problem.

>  - I'm missing a list, who is currently working on *what*. There
> is the
>    bugzilla entry (102668), but it seams to be out of date.
>    (On the web there is a list of who is contributing, but not what)
>  
>  As an example:
>  
>  I just wrote a text (about 8 pages) to assist some of my staff members
>  to set up a samba server on FC 4. I consired to contribute it to the
>  fedora doku project. I found in Bugzilla 102668 that Aaron M. Epps is
>  working on that topic, but I couldn't find information about the details
>  of his work nor about the progress. I found nothing about it in CVS yet.
>  So I don't know how to proceed, and the text is going to vanish in the
>  desk drawer.  
I haven't seen anything on that document either.  I hereby declare it
dead and ask that you take up the banner.  Feel free to start fresh,
because we have no raw material, AFAIK.

>  > > * Do you need more directions?  
>  > > * Do you want fewer restrictions?
>  
>  Maybe both of it. Perhaps you should establish some sort of "early stage
>  approval process". Something like: 
[...snip...]

Something like this?  :-)

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/NewWriters

The upshot of the checklist:

 - Post your idea here for discussion (start a new thread)
 - Write and post initial draft for peer review (post link here) and ask
for an editor
 - Apply for CVS access
 - Work with the editor to finish the doc
 - One of the web-empowered editors will publish the doc

>  > > The steering committee for this project is here to help you
> be
>  > > successful working on Fedora documentation.
>  
>  Well, just some ideas from my perspective. I would appreciate if I could
>  contribute some of my texts in a way which is managable for me instead
>  of letting them vanish in the desk drawer :-) 
I think you're on the right track just by posting.  You're well on your
way graduating from "lurker" to "documentation demiurge"!  :-) 
Please
keep the questions coming, since you are probably helping more people
than you think.

-- 
Paul W. Frields, RHCE                          http://paul.frields.org/
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
 Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/

Why are you lurking on the Documentation Project? (was Re: this is for you)

[Peter Boy]

Am Samstag, den 20.08.2005, 11:39 -0400 schrieb Paul W. Frields:
>  > I'm one of those guys who are lurking around and I have
> several
>  > (smaller) pieces of documentation text in my desks drawer.
>  
>  Woo-hoo!  Fresh meat! 
Yes, but no chick  (born in the 50th) :-)


>  > As an example:
>  > 
>  > I just wrote a text (about 8 pages) to assist some of my staff members
>  > to set up a samba server on FC 4. I consired to contribute it to the
>  > fedora doku project. I found in Bugzilla 102668 that Aaron M. Epps is
>  > working on that topic, but I couldn't find information about the details
>  > of his work nor about the progress. I found nothing about it in CVS yet.
>  > So I don't know how to proceed, and the text is going to vanish in the
>  > desk drawer. 
>  
>  I haven't seen anything on that document either.  I hereby declare it
>  dead and ask that you take up the banner.  Feel free to start fresh,
>  because we have no raw material, AFAIK. 
OK. I will go to the NewWriters page, follow the described steps and
open a new subject for the samba doku.

>  Something like this?  :-)
>  
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/NewWriters 
Yes, but maybe I didn't understood it in it's full sense during my
initial reading. Maybe it is helpful to add a paragraph between "Signing
up" and "Writing you own Documentation"  with a title like "Introduce
your documentation idea and get your ticket" of something like that,
which describes the process using the mailing list. You may add a short
comment that this list is not as non-committal as a lot of other lists
is. It may be helpful to emphasize the purpose to coordinate the work
without spending to much work in the first step and to make sure nobody
duplicates another one's work (no waste of time).

 
>  I think you're on the right track just by posting.  You're
> well on your
>  way graduating from "lurker" to "documentation demiurge"!  :-) 
> Please
>  keep the questions coming, since you are probably helping more people
>  than you think. 
Thanks for the kindly words.


Peter

[Kara Pritchard]

Sorry Karsten.  I had a staffing change in my store and have been too busy 
to get started with anything.  I am watching, however, to see if there are 
things I can help with until I can get a chance to sit down and look at 
things. 

-Kara

On Mon, 15 Aug 2005, Karsten Wade wrote:

>  Maybe you introduced yourself, or are still lurking.
>  
>  Perhaps you have a document in progress, or an idea in process.
>  
>  The Documentation Project needs you to help keep the momentum going.
>  
>  * What is stopping you from submitting your document?  
>  * From using CVS?
>  * Do you need more directions?  
>  * Do you want fewer restrictions?
>  
>  The steering committee for this project is here to help you be
>  successful working on Fedora documentation.
>  
>  What can we do for you?
>  
>  - Karsten
>  -- 
>  Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
>  gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
>                         Red Hat SELinux Guide
>  http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/
>   
Kara Pritchard                          Phone: [phone]
President, KS Computer Room Inc.	kara(a)kspei.com
Southern Illinois Linux Users Group	www.silug.org
--

[Karsten Wade]

On Tue, 2005-08-16 at 09:02 -0500, Kara Pritchard wrote: 
>  Sorry Karsten.  I had a staffing change in my store and have been too
> busy 
>  to get started with anything.  I am watching, however, to see if there are 
>  things I can help with until I can get a chance to sit down and look at 
>  things.  
No worries.  Thanks for the status reply.  Anything we can do to help,
let us know.

cheers - Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
                       Red Hat SELinux Guide
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/

[Philip Johnson]

Sorry this isn't GPG signed, as usual I'm away from my main boxes.

My excuse is pretty much the same as Karas to be honest, I'm just too
damn busy with work to be able to do anything useful at the moment.

I too am watching. What *would* IMHO be useful though is a list of
small documents or sections that need writing (there may already be
one, I haven't looked).

That way, when I have a few minutes stopping for a coffee I can get a
little bit done.

Regards,

-- 
Philip Johnson (PlasticMonkey)
[phone]
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Philip Johnson wrote:

> Sorry this isn't GPG signed, as usual I'm away from my main
> boxes.
>
> My excuse is pretty much the same as Karas to be honest, I'm just too
> damn busy with work to be able to do anything useful at the moment.
>
> I too am watching. What *would* IMHO be useful though is a list of
> small documents or sections that need writing (there may already be
> one, I haven't looked).
>
> That way, when I have a few minutes stopping for a coffee I can get a
> little bit done.
>
> Regards,
>
>   
>  
A good place to start would be
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

www.n-man.com
--

[Philip Johnson]

On 8/19/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  Philip Johnson wrote: 
[snip]
>  A good place to start would be
>  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas
>   
Thanks, but I was thinking of parts of documentation which would maybe
take 30-50 minutes of time max?

It would be better that way because I'd be able to find time in
between things to write it, whereas big mainstream documents I
wouldn't.

That list will come in useful when I get a large chunk of spare time
though, thanks.

>  --
>  Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
>  nman64(a)n-man.com
>  
>  www.n-man.com 
Regards,
-- 
Philip Johnson (PlasticMonkey)
[phone]
Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments.
See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

[Stuart Ellis]

On Fri, 2005-08-19 at 17:57 +0100, Philip Johnson wrote:
>  On 8/19/05, Patrick Barnes <nman64(a)n-man.com&gt; wrote:
>  > Philip Johnson wrote:
>  [snip]
>  > A good place to start would be
>  > http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/DocIdeas
>  > 
>  
>  Thanks, but I was thinking of parts of documentation which would maybe
>  take 30-50 minutes of time max?
>  
>  It would be better that way because I'd be able to find time in
>  between things to write it, whereas big mainstream documents I
>  wouldn't. 
Here's an idea that might interest you: short presentations.  OOo
Impress will export to both HTML and Flash, which suggests that it could
be technically easy to put together little demos or featurelets that
could be played in a variety of contexts.  The trick would be making
them interesting to watch.

-- 

Stuart Ellis

stuart(a)elsn.org

Fedora Documentation Project: http://fedora.redhat.com/projects/docs/

GPG key ID: 7098ABEA
GPG key fingerprint: 68B0 E291 FB19 C845 E60E  9569 292E E365 7098 ABEA

[Karsten Wade]

On Fri, 2005-08-19 at 17:57 +0100, Philip Johnson wrote:

>  Thanks, but I was thinking of parts of documentation which would
> maybe
>  take 30-50 minutes of time max? 
You could take on a small release notes beat:

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ReleaseNotes/Beats

These beats are designed to be filled by more than one person.

If you don't have the time or desire to write the XML, you can do
something like this:

1) Keep a Wiki page with notes ongoing throughout the devel cycle

2) Make up a single bug report that has this content or points to the
Wiki page, made out against the release-notes component.

Just do this within the development timeframe, and it can get into the
main release notes.

We'll release a schedule soon about this, so people can know when to get
changes in for translation, etc.  We also need to reconsider a structure
on the Wiki this for this.

This works great for someone who is able to keep up with some areas of
personal interest, and share the latest features and nastiest bugs with
us all.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
                       Red Hat SELinux Guide
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/

[Patrick W. Barnes]

Karsten Wade wrote:

> On Fri, 2005-08-19 at 17:57 +0100, Philip Johnson wrote:
>
>   
>
> >Thanks, but I was thinking of parts of documentation which would maybe
> >take 30-50 minutes of time max?
> >    
> >
>
> You could take on a small release notes beat:
>
> http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject/ReleaseNotes/Beats
>
> These beats are designed to be filled by more than one person.
>
> If you don't have the time or desire to write the XML, you can do
> something like this:
>
> 1) Keep a Wiki page with notes ongoing throughout the devel cycle
>
> 2) Make up a single bug report that has this content or points to the
> Wiki page, made out against the release-notes component.
>
> Just do this within the development timeframe, and it can get into the
> main release notes.
>
> We'll release a schedule soon about this, so people can know when to get
> changes in for translation, etc.  We also need to reconsider a structure
> on the Wiki this for this.
>
> This works great for someone who is able to keep up with some areas of
> personal interest, and share the latest features and nastiest bugs with
> us all.
>
> - Karsten
>   
>  
I'm sure this won't surprise you, but I would be happy to help out in
setting up something like that on the wiki.  Give me a run-down of what
you see the needs being, and write up a quick summary of what you have
in mind, and I'll start trying to come up with something suitable.

-- 
Patrick "The N-Man" Barnes
nman64(a)n-man.com

www.n-man.com
--

[Karsten Wade]

On Fri, 2005-08-19 at 18:36 -0500, Patrick Barnes wrote:

>  I'm sure this won't surprise you, but I would be happy to
> help out in
>  setting up something like that on the wiki.  Give me a run-down of what
>  you see the needs being, and write up a quick summary of what you have
>  in mind, and I'll start trying to come up with something suitable. 
Yes, in fact, the only reason I didn't seek you out already is that I'm
in discussions with the designer of http://developer.mozilla.org,
looking for tips on how they organized stuff.

While I personally don't want to work on much more than a single page
through a Wiki, others obviously feel otherwise.  We'll do what we can
to accommodate that.  For example, we're looking into ways to work on
DocBook _through_ the Wiki.

I've proved to myself that we can't work on a massive release notes
through the Wiki, but it makes a great place to keep notes and possibly
do some authoring.

So, perhaps a relatively flat namespace, such as:

wiki/ReleaseNotes/BeatName

With a caveat at the top this is a workspace and not a release space?

Maybe wiki/Drafts/ReleaseNotes/... would be better, make it more obvious
it is a drafting space.

- Karsten
-- 
Karsten Wade, RHCE * Sr. Tech Writer * http://people.redhat.com/kwade/
gpg fingerprint:  2680 DBFD D968 3141 0115    5F1B D992 0E06 AD0E 0C41   
                       Red Hat SELinux Guide
http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/enterprise/RHEL-4-Manual/selinux-guide/